On January 4th 2010 Spore.com announced there would be 14 new mech-style robot parts for the Creature Creator, provided as part of Patch 1.06. This special give away was only available with a code that was specially marked on Dr. Pepper bottles (under the cap), or at participating Taco Bell restaurants with any order of a large drink. Once the code was found it must have be entered on the Dr. Pepper website[1]. The offer is only open to residents of the USA (excluding Maine). The Patch can be used on a Macintosh, but it will have to be installed like a mod.
Controversy
Ever since it was announced, the Mech Pack caused a great deal of controversy due to it being exclusive to residents of the USA, and the fact that the offer was limited to Dr. Pepper soft drinks. It has also been recently discovered that the pack contains the longly anticipated Patch 1.06, which only contributed to the controversy.
Soon after the announcement, many creations featured on the Most Popular New creations list demand the parts to be made into a patch, available for everyone around the world, PC and Mac and Steam users.
Due to the fact that you can't get the parts outside of the US, a pirated version has been floating around. The pirated version does not allow you to share your mech creations due to the game not registering you as actually having a serial for it.
Although each bottle clearly states that "Every Bottle Wins", it has been discovered that, although rare, some bottles indeed lack a code, adding ever so more to the controversy. Several users have also made complaints and creations claiming that they will boycott EA and some people are starting to downrate the bots.
After submitting a code, the Dr.pepper website will send you to a page on the spore.com site where you will be able to download the parts pack and (if you don't have it) the EA download manager. Sometimes, this screen will not have the download link attached to it, and sometimes it will, but when clicked on, your computer will be unable to display the page. Maxis has yet to say anything since the controversy began, so a way to fix this remains unknown.
Finally, after several weeks since the controversy began, The page on the official Spore Forum Now hold two messages reading:
Update (2/19): The issue with Dr Pepper parts not showing up in game should now be resolved. Thanks for bearing with us as we got a fix out.
Update (2/19): We are aware that Dr Pepper parts are not currently being correctly granted to players who redeem their codes. Thanks for your patience as we work to resolve this.
These messages are unknown to most players, yet the controversy has begun to shallow out.
An (unconfirmed) way to fix this is to download the patch on an alternate computer, then it will be saved to your EA download manager. Then, you can download it without having to go to the website. However, it will only work for the username you downloaded the patch with, and it will lock if any other users attempt to download it.
Around the beginning of the year, the deadline was extended to end of 2011. It was was never explained why, but this action caused the controversy to grow even more. Unlike last time, you could still get the parts from the Dr. Pepper website if you had any unused codes, but the codes were no longer being made.
Trivia
- Limbs appear to follow the same restrictions for attaching to other limbs as exoskeletal limb segments. They will attach to any limb type, but only exoskeletal and robot limbs will attach to them.
- The mouth parts offered through the patch do not have the Sing ability. It is possible to make a creature with no social attributes by using these parts. However, attempting to socialize with them will crash your game, as they cannot respond.
- Note this can be fixed by installing the fan-made patch Davo's Vocal Bot Mouths, witch adds sing level 1 to the bot mouths. A partial workaround is to put a normal creature mouth on and hiding it beneath the machine mouth, allying whomever you wish, adding your species to your pack, and then going back and removing the hidden mouth afterwards. You can also add a part adding "charm" and hide it on your creature.
- All bot parts are unlocked at the beginning of the Creature Stage. Note that only Omnivores will have the jaws unlocked.
- The mouths make the same noise as the amphibian mouths, but with a slight choppy/filter effect sound to make them sound more robotic.
- Certain Cyber enemies and heroes in Darkspore use the Bot Parts to some degree.
- All limbs include a hand or foot part when you put it on, this gives the illusion that bot limbs are expensive, when in reality the limbs alone are 5 less than their respective joint counterparts.